John Bolton, the incoming U.S. national security adviser, said North Korea is offering negotiations with the United States in order to buy time to develop its nuclear weapons. “I think we have to look at what North Korea’s motivation is here. I think they’re very worried that they’ve got a different president in the White House than Barack Obama. They’re worried about the pressure that the president’s already put on” Bolton said in an interview.
“They’ve got a fairly limited number of things they need to do in North Korea to make their nuclear warheads actually deliverable on targets in the United States. So they want to try and slow roll the negotiations to buy more time. This is something they’ve done consistently over the last 25 years” he added. Taking months to prepare for the meeting would “simply play into the North Korean playbook” Bolton concluded.